HILLARY BROOKE

Hillary Brooke (1914-99), a former model, was born in Astoria, New York but spoke with a cultured accent. She developed this early in her career to separate herself from other sexy blonde actresses. Brooke appeared in AFRICA SCREAMS (1949) and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD (1952). She also co-starred in three Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, including THE WOMAN IN GREEN (1945). Her other film credits include JANE EYRE (1944), Hitchcock’s, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, and several noir films. In “The Abbott and Costello Show,” broadcast in the early ‘50s but syndicated for decades afterwards, Brooke played the role of a straitlaced, classy fellow tenant of the rooming house where the duo lived.

Many of these actors achieved stardom because of their start in film noir; others, despite it. In any case, at one time or another, sometimes many times, they played cops and robbers, hoodlums and toadies, doomed anti-heroes and femme fatales in one of filmdom’s richest genres. And all of us fans of film noir are richer for that. A tip of the fedora to them all.